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Brown Media buys most of Brown PublishingBrown Media buys most of Brown PublishingThursday, July 22, 2010 By Staff NEW YORK - Brown Publishing Co. and Brown Media Holdings Co. have accepted two bids — one from company insiders — for all of the assets of the bankrupt publisher. Brown owns a majority interest in the Wyoming Business Report. Brown Media Corp. offered $22.4 million in cash for the majority of the assets in an auction July19, according to documents filed Thursday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Central Islip, N.Y. Brown Media also will assume liabilities of $1.6 million in the purchase. Assets include real estate holdings and daily and weekly newspapers in Ohio, as well as business publications across the country. Brown Media Corp. was formed in March by three top executives of Cincinnati-based Brown Publishing - CEO Roy Brown, CFO Joe Ellingham and General Counsel Joel Dempsey. The successful bid was approximately $11 million more than Brown Media Corp.'s initial "stalking horse" bid of $15.9 million for all of Brown Publishing offered in May. The other successful bid identified in the filing was $3.59 million plus the assumption of liabilities for a handful of newspapers and websites in Ohio by The Delphos Herald, which owns other publications in the state. According to Thursday's filing, Brown had received six qualified bids for the purchase of all or part of its assets by the deadline of July 16. The auction, which took place in New York City, proceeded through 60 rounds of bidding under three different scenarios, finally closing at 5 a.m. July 20. The court received two objections after the auction, one from minority shareholder Windjammer Mezzanine and Equity Fund II LP, which had previously filed a $9 million civil suit against Brown Publishing, and one from the official committee of Brown's unsecured creditors. The committee also had previously asked the court to delay the proceedings. Brown argued in subsequent motions that if the assets could not be sold by July 30, it would "run out of money and be forced to shut down operations." Final disposition is pending the outcome of a sale hearing that began at noon Mountain Time Thursday in Central Islip. Additional objections could be made at that time. Brown Media Holdings purchased Boulder Business Information Inc., which held a 51 percent stake in WBR and the Northern Colorado Business Report and 100 percent of sister publication Boulder County Business Report, in February 2008. The company filed for Chapter 11 creditor protection April 30, claiming $94 million in assets and $104.6 million in liabilities. |
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